Ruining the Kiss
by Shinigami29
Summary: [multichapter] “You moron!” She didn’t slow down as she yelled over her shoulder. “Telling the guy I was on a date with that I had already had my first kiss? And with you no less!”
1. Prologue

_Disclaimer: _I do not, under any condition, own Digimon or any of the characters… if I did, I wouldn't be here, on my knees, begging you not to rat me out. I DUN WANNA GET SUED.

**Prologue**

Rika stormed angrily through the park, cursing the dress she wore as her hair fell messily into her make-up laden eyes. Her mother had been thrilled when she had asked for help getting dressed for that dance… and now she would be furious that she was walking home, alone, and an hour early.

_Stupid Henry… _she thought to herself darkly. _Why couldn't he just not be there? It's __**all his**__ fault._ Hearing foot falls behind her she paused just long enough to pull off the heels that her mother had _insisted_ that she wore. Feet free from restraint, she started jogging.

"Rika!" Henry's familiar voice laughed behind her. He was catching up, making her even angrier. "Rika slow down! I didn't mean to make you mad!"

"You moron!" She didn't slow down as she yelled over her shoulder. "Telling the guy I was on a date with that I had already had my first kiss? And with _**you**_ no less!"

He caught her elbow, laughing again as he pulled her to a stop. "Sorry, sorry…" His smile aggravated her farther, and she glared. "Would you like me to tell him that it was a lie?"

"But it wasn't a lie!" She itched to slap him. _Stupid Henry and his stupid smile. _"Which makes it worse! You ruined my first kiss!"

Henry rolled his eyes, but didn't let go of her arm. "We went over this… I only ruined your first kiss with _me_. Not your first kiss with anyone else; every experience is different."

"You _ruined_ my first kiss with Ken!" She could feel her already-fragile sanity starting to slip. _I will not loose control, I will not loose control…_

"How did I ruin your first kiss with Ken?" Henry asked lightly, far too amused with the situation.

"You kept telling me that a first kiss was supposed to be romantic and after one of those corny pauses, like you see in the bloody movies!"

"No," he corrected, raising his free hand to shake a finger in her face. "I said that a _good_ first kiss was supposed to be like that."

"Exactly!" She took a deep breathe, and told herself to calm down. _Why can't he see the problem here? It's obvious! _"And now every single 'first kiss' I have with someone I'm going to think it should be like that, and my kiss with Ken wasn't like that!" There was a deafening pause, and tension hung in the air. _But… _

"… but your kiss with me was," Henry finished. Rika felt her cheeks heat up and the blunette's smile grew tenfold. "Awe… how cu-"

She snapped. And slapped him. "Cute? Cute!" Fuming, Rika yanked her arm out of Henry's grasp and turned away from him. "So what if your kiss was that way? That just makes it _even worse!_ Now I'll think of you every time I kiss someone!"

He was silent behind her, and Rika worried for a moment that she had crossed a line… _No! This is all his fault! He deserves this! _

She moved to take a step forwards, a step away from him, when he started laughing again. "So then go kiss him again Rika!" Henry chuckled. "Because, logically, the _second_ kiss shouldn't remind you of me at all. Right?"

"No, of course not!" She could already feel herself calming down. "Because I've only kissed you once." _Okay… it's still his fault… but now I feel silly. _Looking down at the heels dangling limply in her hand, she tried to remember why exactly she had agreed to go to the stupid dance anyways… sure, she _liked _Ken, but she _hated_ dances… "Henry, I'm sorry."

"Hey, momentai," he said jokingly, moving to stand behind her. Rika glanced up into his grey eyes, seeing the harsh red mark on his cheek. "The past is the past… no hard feelings?"

She chuckled, feeling embarrassed. "None… I can't believe I overreacted that much to a stupid kiss."

"Wait until your second one," Henry teased.

"Oh no you don't," she glared at him again, and started walking; he kept up with her easily, and shrugged off his jacket to cover her bare shoulder's politely.

"Hey, it's not ruining anything," he insisted even as she tried to refuse his jacket. A breeze drifted past and she relented. "Second kisses could be anything… could be another slow, romantic one… or it could be fast and unexpected. Just like that."

"And you would know," she couldn't help but roll her eyes at him, like he had earlier.

"Better than you would."

"And how many second kisses have you had?" She was starting to get a sense of déjà vu…

"Déjà vu much?" Henry laughed. "And what next..? We kiss again?"

"No," she sent him a glare, but he only smiled at her. _He's been smiling a lot lately… idiot. _"Next you tell me now many second kisses you've had."

"Ah, so this _is _déjà vu…" he nodded, almost solemnly. "Lets see… at least 3."

"At least?" She continued to glare at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Jealous?" He teased, but didn't let her respond. "It means that kisses before high school don't actually count."

"You kissed someone before you were in high school?" Rika paused again, and Henry pushed her forwards gently so that he wouldn't have to stop.

"Yep," she watched him nod out of the corner of her eye. "One of Jeri's friends had a crush on me at one point or another. She attempted to hook us up; didn't turn out too well."

_Oh. _Rika tried not to feel curious, but couldn't help it… she wanted to know. Looking down at her bare feet as she took step after step, she chewed on her lip lightly. "What happened..?"

She saw him shrug out of the corner of her eye. "We went on a few dates. Kissed. Went on another date, kissed again. Decided to call it off… she kept sending me stalkerish Emails and phoned me every day or so for a month or three afterwards, but eventually she got the picture." He chuckled, a light coming to his eyes as he remembered. "Literally."

"Literally?"

"Me and Kazu took a couple dozen pictures of this girl we know and stuck them all up in my locker, and then Kazu 'accidentally' gave her my locker combination." Henry looked almost guilty, and Rika rolled her eyes.

"That's called an invasion of privacy."

"Yeah I know," he shrugged. "But I'm sure that if the girl had known the situation, she would've understood and agreed to being a pretend girlfriend, if only for a week or two… after that Kazu insisted that I had this huge, fake break-up episode over the phone; it was pretty dramatic."

"How'd you pull _that_ off?" The digimon queen felt a smile tugging at her lips in spite of herself, and attempted to school her features as the two of them stepped out of the park, and closer towards the street that Rika lived on.

"Takato sucked up some helium and said some pretty words, very loudly, over a speaker phone that I rigged up to the PA system…"

"That's downright sneaky," Rika giggled, feeling girlish for the moment; she shook the comfortable, light-hearted feeling out of her head, and looked around to see where she was. "Oh… I'm going the other way."

"No worries." They both stopped, and gave each other smiles like any old friend would.

"Goodnight Henry," she lingered a moment longer, before turning away from him… and that's when it happened.

She had barely finished turning when his hand glided over her back; time sped up and slowed down for that fraction of a second it took him to grasp her arm just tight enough to make her turn around. The hand on her back drifted up to her neck, tilting her jaw back as the blue-haired, gray-eyed seventeen-year-old digimon tamer she had known since they were in middle school, leaned forwards and kissed her.

It was deeper than their last kiss, pulling teeth over lips and tongue over tongue as she fought simply to breathe and remember why this was supposed to be making her mad… and then he pulled away, gave her that idiot smile that he had been smiling all week, and stepped away from her.

"… and now I've ruined all your second kisses as well," he chuckled, giving her a wave as she stared at him in a daze. Turning around, Henry walked away.

… _what..? _Rika blinked, and the world crashed in on her from all sides. "You'll pay for that Wong!"

"Momentai, Rika-kun!" He called back to her, not stopping. "Oyasumi!"

"Ugh!" She wanted to throw a tantrum, like she would've done as a child. "I'll _never_ kiss anyone _ever_ again!"

He laughed again, the sound tinkling back to her from all around. Little did either of them know was that for the next 6 years, Rika would keep that promise.


	2. Recapping the Past

_Sorry about the long, long wait... no, the plot hasn't changed any, yes, this time skip was completely planned when I originally started this story; I just hit a smidge of a writer's block when trying to start this chapter. A different POV has solved that problem~!_

**Recapping the Past**

People came and went as they pleased, ignoring the brunette sitting by himself in the corner of the little coffee shop. _Why was I asked to wait here? _He asked himself with a sigh, looking at his watch before his eyes started to once again wonder around the room. _This is such a stupid place to meet someone for a job interview..._

A bell rang as the door opened, catching his attention. A couple of teenage girls walked in, chatting to each other with their giggling voices; as much as he knew it wasn't who he was waiting for, he couldn't help but stare at them, admiring the line of one of the girl's neck as it curved under her shirt, or how the light reflected in the other girl's eyes, or how-

He shook his head viciously, scolding himself as he looked down at his camra sitting on the table in front of him. _Being a photographer is no excuse to check out teenage girls. _He glanced back up for a moment, catching one of the giggling girl's flirtatious looks. _Even if they are cute._

Grumbling to himself as he looked at his watch yet again, he pulled his portfolio onto the table to flip through it. _Whoever this stupid fashion designer is, he's fourty minutes late! _

The bell above the door rang again, but this time he ignored it. Instead he gazed at one of his pictures in the portfolio, a finger trancing over the delicate lines of a petal...

"Kazu?"

He snapped his head up at being addressed, only to stare blankly at the person in front of him. "R-Rika..?"

The 23 year old Kazu hadn't seen Rika since they had graduated from high school 5 years ago, and even then he hadn't seen her often. They had gone to different schools, had hung out in different crowds... Henry and Takato were the only reason he _did_ see her, whenever his two friends dragged the callous girl out of her shell to enjoy her life a little bit.

"Kazu," she said again, snapping him out of his daze. "You have a camra... I take it you're the photographer I'm supposed to be meeting?"

He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out; he could only watch as she sat down, slidding her jacket off of her shoulders gracefully as she did. _Her hair is longer, _he noticed. Her red locks were left out of the high pony tail she used to wear as a child, framing her lavender eyes perfectly. And then she looked up at him, her eyes meeting his in that same piercing gaze that she used when they were younger, and he couldn't help but reach for his camra, wanting to photograph her in that moment...

Instead he laughed, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly as he finally found his voice. "Yeah, I would be the photographer... does that mean that you're the fashion designer that I'm looking for?"

"No, Kazu, you're looking for the geezer in plaid suspenders," she replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes as she looked down at his portfolio. "Are these your work?" He nodded. "Do you mind if I look?" He nodded again.

She took his precious portfolio into her hands, opening it and looking at the first few pictures dismissively. He tried not to feel hurt, instead cast about for something to talk about... "So... how've you been?"

"Good obviously," she replied, taking an extra moment to overlook one photo or another; he wrung his hands together nervously, itching to know which one had caught her attention.

"Come on Rika!" he whined. "I haven't seen you since highschool! What have you been doing all these years?"

"I became a fashion designer, duh."

"Well, obviously," he parodied her. She flipped through the next couple of photos without a care before another one caught her attention. _Which one is it? _"But what _else_ have you been doing..?"

"Nothing much else," she answered with a shrug. "Just got back from America; some company wanted me to sign a contract for to sell my clothes in their stores... but I didn't like their models or their photographer. So now I'm here."

"When did you go to America?" He asked, trying to keep the conversation from getting awkward.

She glanced up at him for a moment, an amused smile on her face. "A couple of weeks ago, Kazu. Stop asking me for my life story." She turned back to the photos, moving to the next one carefully.

Kazu sighed, digging a hand into his hair. _Same old Rika... does she ever change? _"Well, did you want to know how _I've _been doing..?"

"If I wanted to know, I would've asked."

He glared at her for a moment, but her amused smile was still there. _Is she teasing? _"I started getting interested in photography in my last year of high school-"

"Is that why there's pictures of me in here?" She interrupted, looking up at him with a mischevious grin as she held up a picture for him to see; it was one with her and Takato. Takato was running in the background, yelling something as he nearly tripped over his own feet. Rika stood in profile, eyes sparkling as she laughed.

"Well... about that..." he tried to look anywhere but at her, his nervousness coming out in his words. "Well... you're the daughter of a famous model, and well..."

"You thought it would be a good career booster?" She laughed out. He just nodded, shocked at her reaction. _She isn't mad at me..? She's not going to kill me? _"Relax Kazu... so long as you didn't sell any of them to magazines or something, I won't hurt you."

"Right," he laughed as well. _Hope she never figures out I'm the one who gave the newspapers that picture of her at prom a couple of years ago... _

They stayed silent for a while longer, Rika looking over the pictures and Kazu becoming increasingly nervous. He was't used to the lack of questions, or the continual silence; most interviews he'd been to, it was with a company and their questions seemed endless with every picture. And Kazu had a lot of pictures.

"So..." he broke the silence eventually. "Did you want a coffee or something..?"

"No," she answered curtly.

_Hn. _He grumbled to himself, leaning back in his chair. The bells at the door sounded again, and he looked up to see who it as; a little old lady with her grandson, probably coming to get a cookie or something. _She really hasn't changed much... _

"How's everyone else, Kazu..?" her voice as soft when she spoke. He almost didn't hear her for his daydreaming.

"Everyone else?" He blinked, looking back at her. He was shocked to see that she looked nervous, scanning over one picture or another... Kazu smiled. _So she missed us. _"They're good. Takato's been working in the bakery with his parents, Kenta went to college with me," she snorted quietly, and he saw her roll her eyes. "He's trying to become a newscaster, but personally I think he's gonna be stuck as the coffee-monkey _forever_..."

"Coffee monkey?" She asked, her lavender eyes looking up at him once again.

"You know..." Kazu gestured with one hand as he tried to explain. "The guy that always seems to be running to get coffee..? Or lunch? Or the 13 inch ruler?" She laughed, nodding. "That guy! The coffee monkey."

She quieted down, a happy smile on her face as she looked down at the next picture; then she frowned. "What about Henry..?"

"You know Henry, always the smart one..." Kazu laughed, trying to ignore her frown. _Is she upset? _"He's a computer programer or something high tech like that; I never really understand what he's talking about whenever he goes on about all the do-hickies that he works with."

She rolled her eyes, putting the portfolio down for a moment; Kazu looked to see what picture she was on, and his eyebrows raised in a silent question. _Is that what brought about her frown..?_

It was a picture of Henry that he'd only taken a few weeks ago; the half-Chinese blunette was craddling a crying young woman against his chest, looking down at her adoringly as he muttered meaningless things to try to make her happy, a hand gently brushing her hair...

"Have you read over my contract, or did you find this through some listing or another..?"

He blinked again, her impromtu question catching him off guard. "Aa... I never read a contract. I just called the advertised number and some guy told me to be here at this time..."

She sighed, resting her elbow on the table and dropping her chin into her cupped hand. "Well... I don't have a contract with me, so this'll have to strickly be a verbal thing, and you'll have to come to the studio tomorrow to sign-"

"Does this mean I have the job?" Kazu asked in disbelief. _Rika is hiring me..? No way!_

"It depends." She narrowed her eyes at him, causing him to smile back at her sheepishly. "There are certain requirements you have to meet."

"Like what?" Kazu asked, the feeling of elation having not yet left him.

"First of all, I have to approve of your photography style," she chided him. His smile grew. _And she obviously has, otherwize she wouldn't be continuing on about this! _"Then, my model has to approve of your photography style."

He frowned. "You have a model?"

"Just one," Rika sat up straight, reaching back to dig something out of her jacket pocket. When she found what she was looking for she turned back to Kazu, holding out a small picture for him to look at. "He'll kill me if he figures out that I showed you that... but if you don't recognize him, he'll be even more hurt."

Kazu took the picture curiously, and almost choked on the air he was breathing. "Ryo? _Ryo _is your model?"

"It lets him get easy money and spend the rest of his time doing the things he likes to do," Rika shrugged. "Besides... my male clothes are designed for him."

"B-but..." his shoulders slumped. _I thought Ryo would be doing something cool, like becoming an astronaut and going to Mars or skydiving or something... _

"Don't worry, he still does all his stupid stuff," Rika consolled him. "He's coming back from bull fighting in Italy this evening, if that makes you feel better."

"Bull fighting?" Kazu perked up immediately.

"Yes," Rika rolled her eyes. "Please, never mention it again. Carrying on-"

"But I wanna talk about Ryo!"

"Talk about him tomorrow, when you _see _him." She growled at him."Seriously, you're _still _worse than a rapid fangirl whenever Ryo is concerned..." he opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off. "May I finish?" Kazu stopped the curses from escaping his lips, and nodded. "Good... Ryo has to approve of you're photography style. You have to approve of photographing Ryo-"

"I'm good with that."

"I figured," she shook her head as she continued. "Then I have to approve of _your _model, who I _should _be meeting tomorrow, but seeing as-"

"Wait, my model?" Kazu asked, interrupting her again.

"Yes, your model." Rika drawled out. "If you had _read_ my contract already, you would've known that you need to have a female model willing to sign herself into my company."

"You have a company?"

"It's my mom's technically," Rika explained, annoyance in her voice. "She starting a modling company a couple of years ago... but that's not the point. She has to be willing to join my company... I'm assuming you don't have one yet, so I can wait until the end of the week, but I have deadlines to make and-"

"No, no, I think I might have someone!" Kazu said excitedly. _Oh my god this interview is going __**so**__ great! _He pointed at the picture on top of his portfolio, the one that had caught Rika's attention. "Her!"

The one of Henry and the pretty young girl.

"Her?" Her scowl was back, sobering Kazu up quickly. "And who exactly is _'her'_?"

"U-um..." he reached forwards, grabbing her portfolio as he searched for a better picture of the girl. He found one quickly enough, tucked away at the back, and put it in front of Rika. "It's Suzie."

The picture was taken in the park, just when the sakura blossoms were starting to fall. A breeze had picked up the petals, causing them to dance in the girl's hair as she smiled at someone out of the frame. Her hand was up, checking that the flower behind her ear was still there as her arm hugged her own middle, trying to keep warm.

"Suzie?" Rika frowned, one of _her _hands falling onto the tabling, her fingers druming against the wooden surface angrilly.

"You remember Suzie," Kazu said meekly. "She went to the digital world with us? Henry's little sister..?"

Her eyes softened, her frown slowly disappearing. "Henry's sister?"

"Yeah," Kazu laughed nervously. "She's become rather photogenic... she doesn't want to be a model or anything, but she doesn't _not _want to be one either... hell, she doesn't know what she wants to do in her life right now."

"Henry's sister."

"Yeah," he nodded, feeling a bit more confidant. "She's 19 now... she moved out of her parent's place just after she graduated, because of some fight they had about her not wanting to go into any secondary school, and she's been living with Henry ever since and working at a nightclub as a waitress and-"

"Henry's sister," Rika repeated again. This time Kazu just nodded, watching as the redhead started to smile again. _Who else would it be? _"Right well... I can get caught up on her life story later... right now I have to go and catch up on sleep. Jet lag and all," she stood up, pushing her chair back as she grabbed her jacket. "I expect you at the studio _with _Suzie no later than 10 o'clock, okay?" Kazu nodded. Rika shrugged her jacket on easily before she picked up the picture of Ryo. She pulled a card out of her pocket and dropped it onto the table in front of him. "I'll see you then, Kazu?"

"Of course!" He cheered.

She smiled, turned, and left. Kazu just sat there in disbelief, listening to the bells ring above the door as he thought to himself, _dammit, now I'm going to be late to work tomorrow...  
_

_-_

She walked down the familiar streets towards home, her hands stuffed in her pockets and the sounds of people walking around her. She only looked up to watch the crosswalk signs.

_I'm back, _she thought to herself. She had been bouncing back and forth between countries for 6 years now, ever since her last year of high school. She's been to America, Thaiwan, China, Paris, and a few dozen other places, looking and admiring and sketching, all the while taking courses to become a fashion designer... after all, if she couldn't be a model for her mother, why couldn't she design the clothes her mother wore?

The only problem was that now her mother was 'too old' for the photo shoots. No one wanted an old lady to be the face of a company... and suddenly, after all the time Rika had spent trying to be a fashion designer for her mother, she didn't have anyone to design for.

And that's when she had found her client in America; she could do all her work here, so long as she had her own photographer and her own models, and her clothes would be sold in another country. Her mother had been excited, and reluctantly Rika agreed that she was excited as well. But now she wasn't sure how she felt, home for the first time in a long time and staying for once. She thought about the picture she had seen of Henry and his sister, thought about the raw emotions the picture had inflicted in her.

She shook the thoughts out of her head, but it didn't quiet work; instead she thought about the last time she really had spent time with Henry. With _only _Henry...

"Stupid boy," she muttered, though her lips still tingled at the memory of a night six years ago now.


	3. Learning the Lines

**Learning the Lines**

"Why are we up so early?" A sleepy Ryo complained, sitting with his legs straddling the back of the chair he was sitting on.

Rika sighed, barely looking up from her sketchbook. _Why is this buffoon my model again..? _"We're up because that photographer that I'm probably hiring should be showing up any minute now, and we need to go over a few things before signing the contract."

"You said it was Kazu, right?" Ryo asked with a yawn.

"Yes."

"Then I'm sure it's fine..." he leaned back in his chair, holding onto the back rest to stop himself from falling over. "Have a little faith in your friends, right?"

Rika rolled her eyes as she put her pencil back onto the page before her; she could draw Ryo from memory by now, and was designing yet another outfit for him. _But all these outfits that I'm drawing are useless if I can't design a good female counterpart. _"I haven't seen him in 5 years, I can't really call him a friend."

"Awe... come on Rika!" Ryo whined. "Have a heart!"

"How about..." she put her pencil to her chin as she pretended to think. "No."

"You're no fun," he huffed out lightly. But then he heard a knock on the door and cheered up. "That must be them!" He cheered, jumping up to go open the door of the small studio.

"Of course it's them," Rika muttered, turning back to her drawing. She frowned before fixing a seam, and looked at the sketch again. _Nope. This piece is still missing something. _Putting her sketch book aside warily, her mind started boggling over what was missing. _Are the cuffs too long..? Maybe I should change the look of the pants? _Shaking her head, she stood up to move towards the sounds of people entering the studio. She heard Ryo welcoming someone, and waited patiently for them to return._ I have to figure it out quick, because that suit is supposed to be one of the main pieces._

"Good morning Rika!" Kazu cheered happily as he stepped into view. Ryo bounced in after him, always the excited one. _When will he get a life? _"How're you?"

"I'm fine," she responded sourly. The young woman from the photos, Suzie, walked in after the two men, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she fought back a yawn. _How could I forget Henry's sister..? _"And this must be Suzie."

"Ohayoo," the young woman said tiredly, bowing her head in respect. She look around the studio, confusion in her eyes. "Um, Kazu?" The brunette turned to her with a smile and a 'yes?' "You haven't told me what I'm doing here yet..."

_Useless. _Rika huffed, walking towards the young woman. The fashion designer in her couldn't help but observe, couldn't help but think about the colours that would look good with the girl's pale complexion and exotic hair; Suzie differed from her older brother that way. _She could be a perfect match for Ryo, _she mused, stopping in front of the woman. _She's just the right height, too. _"You're here to be a model for me."

"A model?" she blinked her amythest eyes prettily, and Rika saw her proof of the girl's relation to Henry. _Their hair are different colours. Their skin tones don't even begin to match... but the shape of her eyes are the same as Henry's... _"Why would you want me to be a model?"

"Because Kazu photographs you well," Rika shrugged, turning her head to look at Kazu; the brunette seemed embarassed by the compliment. "Can we get this over with?"

"Be nice Rika," Ryo complained, drapping an arm over Kazu's shoulders.

"I'll be nice after I have my coffee," Rika snipped back at him.

"Then go get your coffee, you ol' sourpuss!" Ryo practically sang, removing himself from Kazu's shoulders as he stepped up to Suzie. He took the younger woman's hand in both of his own, looking into her eyes adoringly... it was a manouver Rika had seen him do many times to make girl's swoon over him. And as much as it disgusted her, it worked. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Suzie-chan... please, let me escort you to your changeroom for today?"

"Aa..." Suzie stampered, a light blush colouring her cheeks. Rika rolle her eyes again. "O-okay..."

With a smile and a wink in Rika's direction, Ryo pulled the girl across the room. "Just put on anything you like!" Rika called after them. Ryo waved a hand over his shoulder, and Rika (taking that as a sign that he understood) turned to look at Kazu. "Are you nervous?"

"Nervous?" he laughed at her, though she could hear a tremour in his voice. "Why should I be nervous?"

"You have to photograph Ryo and Suzie today," Rika explained, moving to go back to her seat. _I need to get used to drawing her, if she's going to be my new model... hopefully she **will **be Ryo's match, else I'll have to go through this entire process **again**... _"And if they don't look good together, or your photography is off... well, you don't get the job."

"That's a pretty steep slope..." she heard Kazu mutter. The brunette was following her, and sat down next to her when she found her seat. She smiled as she watched him looking around the studio, before picking up her sketch book and pencil. "There's a lot of equipment here," he whistled lowly. "And expensive, too."

"You're welcome to use any of it," she told him, flipping to a blank page and drawing the faint outlines of a woman. _Are her shoulders this narrow? _"Just know that we don't have anyone to develope the pictures for you... if you use my equipment, you're expected to be able to extract the film, blow up the pictures, and put everything back in working order before you leave the studio."

"Got it," he replied absently.

Rika rolled her eyes yet _again_, but let him carry on looking around in silence as she mused over ideas of outfits that would look good on her would-be-newest model, Suzie. _I wonder what she'll wear..?_

-

"You should wear the jeans and the jacket," Ryo told her as soon as they entered the changeroom. Suzie blinked, looking around the looking room almost frantically. _Isn't there a seperate place for both of us to change..? _

"What jeans and what jacket?" She asked as Ryo dragged her towards the rack of clothes on the far wall... though all the walls had racks of clothes against them, so she wasn't sure why she was dragged to _that_ rack.

"These jeans," he replied, letting go of her hand to riffle through the rack for a moment before producing a hanger with a pair of jeans on them. "And this jacket," another moment of riffling and a jacket appeared.

Suzie frowned, looking at the articles of clothing for a moment before looking up at Ryo. "First of all... I can dress myself. Secondly, there's lots of clothes here, and I would like to look through a few of them myself before I decide. And _thirdly_... you have to leave."

"First," Ryo countered good-naturedly, a grin making it's way onto his handsome face. _He really is cute... _"If you're a model, you wear what you're told, nothing more, nothing less." He rose an eyebrow suggestively, eliciting another blush from the girl. "Secondly, yes, there are lots of clothes... but you're probably going to be _wearing _half of them today, so the faster you put something on the faster you get to try something else on. And _thirdly..._" he stepped towards her, hangers still in hand as he leaned down to whisper in her ear. "Why should I..?"

"Have you always been such a playboy?" Suzie asked, pushing him away shyly. Ryo just shrugged, offering her the clothes in his hands. "Thanks, really... but I _do_ want to look at a _few _of the clothes myself... show some of my own style?"

"Fair enough," Ryo agreed. He put the clothes back on the rack carefully, giving Suzie another smile. "By the way... I don't mean to make you uncomfortable at all, but I can't help but flirt with beautiful girls."

Her blushed deepened as she looked away. "Thank you, Ryo-kun... but you still have to leave while I change."

He just laughed at her, giving her a wink as he left her alone to change.


	4. Ryo the Playboy

**Ryo the Playboy**

_Beep! Beep! Beep! Be- Crash!_

"I'm up, I'm up..." a tired voice groaned at his alarm clock, now lying on the floor after having a pillow thrown at it. A muffled _beep... beep... beep... _could still be heard from underneath said fluffy pillow, but he didn't really care at that particular moment. Rolling onto his back, he stared up at the stucco ceiling of his three-bedroom appartment, and willed himself to wake up. Henry Wong hated working nights.

"Time to get up," he told himself, forcing his sleep muddled brain to think about cold showers and coffee and quadratic equations; anything, so long as it jarred him awake. Getting up out of bed, the 23 year old crossed his (mostly) tidy bedroom to pull open the heavy drapes over his windows.

Suddenly his very dark room was flooded in afternoon light, causing the blunette to squint at the horizon. _I hate working nights... _he sighed to himself, moving about his room to grab something sensible to wear for the day. _The sun is rising when I get home every morning, and then I get to shut myself in all day and attempt to sleep. _Not caring too much about his appearance, he pulled on the first pair of dress pants he found before fishing out a clean button down shirt that he could wear under the jacket he wore to work. _But it's all for Suzie._ Finally dressed, he left his room and walked down the hall towards the kitchen.

He thought about that day, three months ago now... Suzie had just graduated, had just had her birthday, had just started getting naive ideas about life that all teenagers seemed to get when they turned 19; and then, their parents found out that she had no plans. They had screamed and Suzie had cried, and Henry the entire time had watched, agreeing with his parents that his little sister shouldn't've been so fickle with her future. But he couldn't help but feel compassionate as well. Taking her in to live with him had been a big decision, one that came with adjustments and rules for both of the siblings, but since then their parents seemed calmer, happier, if still a bit strained with their youngest daughter.

And Henry's days turned upside down. Thankfully his work held no set schedual; his CEO didn't care if he worked in the dead of night while no one else was there, so long as every night's work was completed and waiting on the CEO's desk for him to see in the morning, and so long as he was making progress, things would be fine. _The perks of being one of the best computer engineers in the country. _

The kitchen was it's normal clean white when he entered it, and he opened the fridge without thought. Pulling out the carton of orange juice, he opened the top and took several large gulps straight from the container. _Mom would yell at me if she saw me do this... _

Suzie, not wanting to be a complete burden to her brother, had gotten a job right away; unfortunately, it was one that Henry really didn't want her to have. Her waitressing at a nightclub was what started his late night shifts: there was no way he was going to let his precious little sister walk herself to and from a job like that. Henry dropped her off each night before her shift, and had personally made sure that her manager would restrain her from leaving until he had _entered_ the building to take her home.

_But it's a job, _he told himself, putting the orange juice away slowly. _And she's just trying to help me out. _He shut the fridge door easily, and was about to go make himself some toast when he noticed something out of place: a note.

_What's this? _The note was tacked to the fridge under a brown and pink magnet shaped like a miniature lopmon, with Henry's name scrawled across the top in giant, underlined letters. He recognized Kazu's handwritting almost immediately, and took the note down to read it properly.

_Hey Henry!  
I came and got Suzie early this morning to do a photoshoot. I stopped by her work last night to tell her, and she said she would tell you, but just in case she forgot, I'm letting you know! And now that I've let you know, well, now you know... oh! She wants you to pick her up to go to work. There's a card on the counter with the address.  
Thanks, Kazu_

"Crazy Kazu," Henry said with a smile. "Can't even write a note like a normal person." He moved to the counter, and sure enough there was a business card there with an address on it. Henry frowned as he looked at the name of the business, _Kirei Models..? What is he trying to get my sister into this time? _Shaking the undying need to protect Suzie from all harm out of his mind, Henry walked out of the kitchen and into his sister's room, which was just across the hall.

Her room was less-than-tidy, but not quite a pig sty. It was because she spent her time either working or sleeping, he knew, but he still liked to tease her about it. Today Henry smiled at the mess as he picked up the odd item or two from the floor and put them away on a shelf, or threw her blankets onto her bed. It took him a few minutes, but eventually he found the baby blue backpack she used whenever she went to work... but upon opening it, he realized that it was empty. _Thanks Suzie, for making my day **so** much easier..._

Looking around the messy room again, he tried to figure out where his _darling_ sister would've put her work clothes. A few inane ideas came to mind quickly, causing a sad smile to come to his lips as he thought about who usually came up with those inane ideas. _I wish you were here, terriermon._

-

"What else do we have to do?" both Ryo and Suzie whined at the same time, before both of them started laughing. Rika growled at them under her breathe, but couldn't help but smile; she had watched throughout the day as Ryo slowly won over the younger woman, charming her and easing her into getting used to his flirtatious ways. And in less than 6 hours the two had become friends.

"Go get changed again," Rika told them both, keeping a careful eye on Suzie as the girl nodded. Ryo challenged her to a race, and the two of them ran towards the change room together. The red-haired woman just rolled her eyes at them for what felt like the millionth time that hour, and looked back to her sketchbook. _Well, at least this outfit is turning out good._

"They seem like quite the pair," Kazu's voice interrupted her train of thought. The brunette had been interrupting her thoughts all day, come to think of it. _Yes Kazu, they're a pair. And thank kami they are or else I'd be screwed right now. _"These photos should turn out perfectly."

She blinked, slowly looking up at Kazu. _Why does he still sound nervous..? _"Kazu... you do realize that Ryo has yelled out that if I even think about hiring a different photographer, he'll kill me, several times today..?" He nodded, his dull blue eyes searching her lavender ones to figure out what she was talking about. "And you've realized that, picture wize, Ryo and Suzie are perfect for each other?" Another nod. "And that unless you _really _screw up developing those photos, there's no way that you're not working for me for the next few months?" Yet another nod. "Then why the fuck are you still nervous?"

"Me? Nervous?" He chuckled, and Rika couldn't help but notice that he did so nervously. _Stupid boy. _"Why would I be nervous?"

"Hell if I should know," she puffed out, blowing air up to lift her bangs out of her eyes: they fell back into the same spot. "What time is it?"

"Aa..." Kazu looked at his watch quickly. "Shit, it's quarter after four!"

"So?" she looked back down at her sketch, and moved to re-draw the hem of the skirt. _Needs to be a bit longer. _"You're supposed to be taking tons and tons of photos of the two of them, together, apart, so that in a couple of days when you get us the photos me and Ryo can look at them and-"

"_Some _people had to do _other_ jobs to keep enough money to live, Rika," Kazu snapped out at her. She stared at him for a moment, surprised that he would dare to snap at her. _He never would've done that when we were younger... _and sure enough, a moment later a sheepish expression crossed his face. "... not that I'm trying to poke at your finacial status or anything, it's not your fault your mom is rich... I mean... I'm gonna shut up now."

"Good idea," Rika said with a smile. _Stupid Kazu. _"So this'll be your second job?"

"Yeah," he nodded, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "You know that nightclub that I said Suzie works at..?" Rika nodded, tilting her head curiously. "I'm the bartender there. I usually start a couple of hours before she does... it's one of the few reasons Henry lets her work there."

"She's old enough to work wherever she wants," Rika mused aloud.

"Yeah, that's one of the other few reasons Henry lets her work there," Kazu snickered. "He means the best... but her being a waitress there, with all the perverted old men coupled with the fact that the more cleavage you show, the more tips you make... it makes him uneasy." Rika silently agreed. "So... I'll take just a couple more photos, and then I should leave."

_Fair enough_, Rika thought, though she made a mental note to be slightly more respectful of the time for the next photo shoot. "Well, you'll only get one series of photos out... do you want to take pictures of Suzie, Ryo, or both of them?"

"Suzie."

His immediate response made her pause and look up at him again. She studied Kazu carefully, but his blue eyes were cast away from her as he waited for the two models to return. _He doens't- no, he couldn't be... _Staring at him harder, she watched the way he glanced towards the change room, the nervous tremour in his hands, the-

"We're back!" The chorus known as Ryo and Suzie sang. Rika turned her head to watch them as they tripped over themselves giggling. _Ryo you idiot... act you age! _Sparing Ryo a glare, Rika instead looked at Suzie.

The purple-haired woman looked stunning.

Her amythest eyes sparkled as she laughed, moving across the studio like a graceful swan... and the clothes she wore suited her innocent look perfectly. The white jacket she had picked out was fitted in the sleeves and bust, drapping on the edges of the young woman's shoulders to show off her delicate collar bone. It flared out slightly at the waist, the hemline stopping just short of her navel in the front, and reaching to the top of her thighs in the back. Combined with the cute pink skirt that the models had dug out of _somewhere _and the matching choker around her neck, one could almost mistake her for an angle. _She just needs wings..._

Rika glanced up at Kazu again, but the brunette was fiddling with his camra.

"It's getting late," the red head said, turning her gaze back to the models. "Kazu has to leave for work soon... he read and signed his contract earlier, so he's just going to finish up with one last round of photographs and head off. Suzie, you'll have to stay here a little longer so that we can talk through your contract and get you in touch with my mother and everything, okay?"

"Okay," the girl nodded, and moved towards where Kazu had set up his camra's tri-pod as Ryo walked towards her.

"I like her," Ryo said with a smile.

Rika smiled back at him, and shook her head. "Some people would argue that you like anything with two legs, Ryo."

"Hey, I'm not _that_ bad of a playboy," he huffed at her, crossing his arms as he feigned annoyance.

"Keep telling yourself that, maybe oneday it'll come true."

-

Henry looked at the card in his hand once again as he walked through the double french doors of the building. _French doors? Who makes an office building with french doors? _Office buildings that belongs to modeling agencies, apparently.

The inside of the building was grand and tasteful, with plush carpets and crystal chandelliers. Henry could barely believe that 20 minutes ago he had been running out of his relatively modest apartment. Bedazzled by the ornaments around him, he almost didn't notice when he made it to the receptionist's desk.

"Good afternoon sir," the receptionist said loudly, breaking him out of hid daze. She smiled at him prettily, and Henry smiled back. _Deffinately a modeling agency, if they can get a receptionist that pretty. _

"Hi," he responded pleasantly, leaning onto the receptionist's desk easily as he let his sister's bag fall off of his shoulder. "I'm here to pick up my sister... Suzie Wong? Do you know where she is?"

"Suzie?" she pursed her lips cutely as she turned to her computer and typed something onto the keyboard. Henry couldn't help himself... he leaned forwards slightly and glanced at the screen, only to flinch. _Why are they using that useless program? _"Sorry," she looked up at him, her big blue eyes glistening. _She must wear contacts to enhance their colour._ "But we don't have a Suzie Wong working here... is there anything _else _I could help you with..?"

He sighed in frustration, raking a hand through his hair messily. "What about Kazu Shioda?"

"Kazu Shioda?" she looked a little put out, and Henry couldn't help but grin as she turned back to her computer. _She should work on her flirting._ He grabbed a pen from her desk while she was busy typing, and pulled a spare piece of paper out of his pocket. "Kazu Shioda... he's up in studio number 4."

"Great," he jotted his name and number down quickly, and met the gaze of the blue eyed receptionist as he put the paper onto her desk with the stolen pen. "Studio four... arigatou!" He waved as he left, following the signs on the walls towards the elevators and studio number 4.

-

"All done!" Kazu called, catching Rika's and Ryo's attention. Rika refused to look up from her sketchbook until she was done drawing that outfit; it was newly inspired, and she wanted to know how the combination would turn out._ And if it doesn't... so help me Kami someone will get hurt.  
_

"Then you better get going!" Ryo called back to him. "You wouldn't want to be late for work afterall!"

"Of course not," Kazu laughed, walking towards them. Rika saw him walking out of the corner of her eye, walking half a step behind Suzie. _Though I may have to hurt Kazu anyways. _"Sooo... When do you want the photos by, Rika?"

"Aa..." She thought for a moment, before realizing she didn't actually know the date. Sitting up straight, she looked at Ryo. "What day is it?"

"Tuesday."

"Right," time clicked back into place, and she looked up at Kazu. "Thursday preferably, Friday at the latest. We do the next shoot Monday Morning."

"So soon?" Suzie asked, confusion making a furrow in her brow.

"I've got pretty good ideas for the first part of the series, and my seamstress lives closeby," Rika explained.

Just then, a _knock! knock! knock! _sounded at the door. Rika frowned, but Ryo automatically stood up to go get it. "You guys still need to talk," he said with a shrug, crossing the studio.

"What's all in the series anyways?" Kazu asked curiously.

"Everything from formal wear to underwear."

Suzie turned bright red, and Rika smirked as she saw Kazu fidget slightly. "U-underwear?" The young woman squeaked out, raising her hands to her cheeks. "But... that's so, so..."

"Revealing?" Rika offered. Suzie nodded her head viciously. "Why? Just think of it as a bathing suite. It's not like this is one of those Victoria's Secret magazines from America. Nothing you wear will be anymore revealing than a bikini."

"B-bikini?" Somehow, she managed to turn redder... and Kazu even started to blush as well.

"Henry's going to kill me..." the brunette whined pitifully.

"Why am I going to kill you?" All three of them were surprised at the newest voice, and all of them looked back towards the doors to the studio to see who had spoke... but Rika, when she saw Henry, more than just _saw _him. Her heart fluttered and her mouth went dry, and her thoughts drifted... and then he noticed her, and looked at her with his grey eyes.

He looked just as surprised to see her, but never got a chance to voice that surprise. "Onii-chan!" Suzie giggled out, rushing over to hug her older brother. She started telling him all about her day, about all the new clothes she got to try on, about some of the more rediculious poses she had to do with Ryo.

Rika stood up and left, leaving her sketchbook behind.


	5. Meeting Mrs Nonaka

**Meeting Mrs Nonaka**

_Great, just great,_ Ryo thought to himself, watching as Rika stormed out of the studio. _The designer is in a huff, and the model is aweing over her brother, _he turned back to Suzie, still with her arms around her older brother. _And the photographer is trying to deny romantic involvement. _

As much as Rika liked to call him a ditz (and to tell him that he should just bite the bullet and dye his hair blonde, so that everyone else would know it, too) he wasn't so stupid as to not realize the tension Kazu had been showing all day... in fact, he had probably noticed it a lot sooner than the red head, _what with her nose stuck in her sketchbook all day, I'm surprised she noticed anything at all._

"Suzie!" Ryo cooed, stepped towards the girl and her brother; he saw Kazu tense from the corner of his eye. _Oh relax you spaz! _"You've gotta come and sign your contract now..."

"Contract?" Henry blinked, a frown marring his face. "What contract?"

"They wanna make me a model, Hen-nii-chan," Suzie replied cutely, pulling away slightly to smile gorgeously up at her big brother. _Though I can see why Kazu likes her... _

"A model?" he raised an eyebrow in question, looking up at Kazu for his response.

The photographer shrugged, not meeting Henry's eyes. "When I met up with Rika yesterday she said that I needed a female model willing to sign onto her company... and the only girl I could think of was Suzie."

"And you didn't think about talking to me about this first?" Henry gritted out.

Ryo couldn't help but snicker as Suzie stepped away from her brother, hands on hips and a glare already being sent in Henry's direction. "I'm old enough to make my own decisions, Henry!" She chided him, before turning on her heel. She stopped to look at Ryo, a defiant gleam in her eyes. "Ryo-kun, where do I have to go?"

"We're gonna go see Rika's mom," Ryo said easily, hooking his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans as he leaned back on his heels. "And she'll go over everything with you and sign you up for your courses and-"

"Courses?" Henry stepped in again, putting a hand on his sister's shoulder as he did so. "What kind of courses?"

_Oo-kay then. Way overprotective. _"Ever since Rika's mom was told she was too old for modeling, she decided that any model going into the business should have a back-up plan," he explained with a shrug. "She was already well-connected enough that it didn't really matter for her... she started up her modeling company easily enough. But some of the girls come in, last a few months and then are never seen again." He gave Suzie a huge smile, and watched as the girl's eyes lighted up. "But you're pretty enough, Suzie, I'm sure you would never have to worry about the courses... No photographer is ever going to want to let you go."

Suzie giggled, and Ryo glanced up at Kazu; the brunette's knuckles were white from how tightly he was gripping his camra. _Relax Kazu!_

"Well, I have to go," Kazu said loudly, commanding attention. "Work and all. I'll see you la-"

His words were cut short as Suzie bounded over to him and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. And if Ryo wasn't mistaken, the pretty young girl pressed a soft kiss to Kazu's cheek before she pulled away and smiled at him. "I'll see you at work later, Kazu! Onii-chan is going to take me to dinner before we go in..." she looked over her shoulder at Henry. "Right, onii-chan?"

Henry sighed, and Ryo smiled again. _Aa... sibling love. _"Of course, Suzie."

-----

"Mom!" Rika called as she pushed the door open to the lush office. Her mother was sitting behind her desk, typing away at her laptop... but she never fooled Rika. She knew that her mother was just scrolling through pictures of other models, admiring and wishing she was still in the spotlight. _Never doing work like she's supposed to be doing... but that's what her assisstant is for, apparently. _

"There's no need to yell, Rika," her mother scolded lightly, a smile on her face as she looked up at her daughter; the wrinkles around her eyes and lips were a testimond to her age, to the reason why she no longer was the girl the photographers swooned for.

"Suzie Wong is showing up." Rika bit out, crossing her arms over her chest as she looked away from her mother. "She's going to be the female model for the collection that I'm doing... and make sure that it says somewhere that she's not allowed to lose more than 10 pounds! I don't hate those stupid annorexic models who-"

"Rika," her mother's musical voice calmed her, as it had done when she was a small child. "I'll make sure that your model doesn't become annorexic," her mother's lavender eyes, just like her own, shone with mirth and merriment. _Why isn't she taking me seriously? _"Suzie Wong did you say?"

"Yes mom," Rika grumbled, moving to sit in one of the plush chairs in front of her mother's chair.

"As in... from the Wong family..?" Rika nodded. "As in Henry Wong?"

Rika blushed, looking away from her mother. "What does that have to do with anything?"

She saw her mother leaned forwards onto her desk, a smile on her lips. "He was one of the boys that you used to spend time with when you were a teenager... right?" Rika nodded again, not wanting to speak. "And he was the one who gave you your first ki-"

"Mom!" Rika snapped out. "That's besides the point!"

"Of course, Rika darling," her mother sat back up in her chair as a knock sounded at the door. "Oh, that must be your model now... come in!"

_Why me? _Rika asked herself as the door opened behind her. She heard Ryo's cheerful hello to her mother, and crossed her fingers out of habit. _Why must I be faced with him now after such a long time..? I was doing such a good job just **not** thinking about him or being around him and now-_

"Rika, don't be rude," her mother scolded her.

"Of course mothing," she muttered under her breathe as she stood up from out of her seat. She turned slowly, her breathe catching in her throat... but when she turned fully, Henry wasn't there. "Wh-where's Henry?"


End file.
